‘Oh, Luke!’ Amanda is moaning. If only he did not have her wrists imprisoned in such a vice-like grip! Desperately, she redoubles her efforts to break free. Almost certainly, something is terribly wrong!

Perhaps it is the strange way in which Luke is looking at her, the expression in his eyes which is one of hunger, almost ferocity! And he has not said once that he loves her!

As she gazes at him he seizes her shoulders once more and shakes her violently.

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‘What of the legacy?’ he hisses. ‘The diamonds! Your great-aunt’s fortune!’

‘W-what diamonds?’ she manages to gasp. ‘W-what fortune?’

‘Don’t play the innocent with me!’ he sneers. ‘You’re not as naive and foolish as all that!’

‘But I am!’ Amanda cries. ‘I don’t know what you mean!’ Oh, if only there were some way to make him believe her! To her shame, she feels a tear escape from one eye and roll slowly down her cheek.

Luke does not appear to have noticed. He has undergone a strange and terrible transformation. Whatever can have caused his hands to swell into fists the size of cabbages, and the veins in his neck and forehead to bulge in such a hideously livid fashion? Amanda chokes back an exclamation of dismay as he smashes his fist into the thin passageway door, as effortlessly as if it were made of matchsticks. She stifles a sob as he throws his head back in a demonic and triumphant laugh.

In vain, she attempts to escape from his vice-like grip.

‘Not like that!’

The voice is high and clear. It comes from somewhere behind Amanda. One of the diners, come on deck for a breath of fresh air? A steward, fortuitously sent to clear the drifting lilos from the abandoned swimming pool? Amanda gazes wildly about her. No! It is Lucinda!

Lucinda, barefoot and clad in a white martial arts costume, her hair pulled back in a ponytail. Lucinda, her face filled with an unexpected urgency.

‘Aim for his vulnerable points! Like this!’

And as Amanda watches in admiration Lucinda sidles up behind Luke and lands a series of perfectly judged crescent kicks to his head and shoulders. Following them up, moments later, with a flurry of lightning-swift jabs to his solar plexus!

Luke falls heavily, and Lucinda bends over him, pushing back the strands of blonde hair that threaten to escape from her ponytail.

‘Luke Tarrant!’ She spits the words out as if they disgust her. ‘I should have known!’ She turns her wide, fearless eyes upon Amanda. ‘Do you want to tell me what happened?’

‘We met by accident and I—he seemed to have some kind of seizure. Is he in any danger?’

Luke makes a feeble attempt to rise and Lucinda pushes him back down again. ‘We’re all in danger as long as he’s like this,’ she responds grimly. ‘I’m page 31 afraid I shall have to disable him further.’

And she does so, with a flurry of blows that make Amanda feel slightly dizzy, watching them. Indeed, it is not often, she thinks to herself, even in these liberated times, that one sees a woman behave really viciously towards a man. The sight, it must be confessed, is not altogether unsatisfying …

Lucinda straightens at last. ‘There!’ she says. ‘That should give us a bit of breathing space! I’ve been meaning to talk to you for some time now.’

‘You have?’ The strange sensation of dizziness seems to have spread from Amanda’s head down to her limbs. She feels as if she is floating in a field of static electricity. It must be the storm, which is threatening to break above them.

‘But first,’ Lucinda is saying, ‘I want to give you these.’ Fumbling in the pocket of her costume she retrieves a pair of crystal tear-drop earrings which she drops into Amanda’s astonished hand.

‘My earrings! But whatever—’

Crash! Lucinda’s reply is drowned in a loud peal of thunder. Bang! The thunder is followed by another jagged streak of lightning, which lights up the sky. The moon, full and round, rides the backs of the black, massed clouds. By its light Amanda sees that they are sailing close to ‘The Gateway to Happiness’. It looms up out of the storm-tossed sea directly in front of them.

Oh! There is some witchery in the air, tonight!

For why else would Amanda’s hand reach out, boldly, and come to rest upon the creamy fullness of Lucinda’s left breast?

And why else would Lucinda’s answering kiss be filled with a tingling depth of passion which takes them both by surprise?

As their lips meet, a wave crashes against the ship’s side, drenching them with its icy, salt-tinged spray.

‘Shouldn’t we go below?’ Amanda murmurs.

‘Soon,’ Lucinda replies. And she leans forward, her eyes hungry with desire, and takes Amanda’s mouth in her own.